UK edging closer to a sensible Brexit

Last weekend, the knives were out for British Prime Minister Theresa May but after a tough cabinet meeting and an engagement with the powerful back bench committee, she has actually emerged from the past week in a much stronger position.

Negotiations on Brexit are back on again in Brussels with no leaks, so having been close ahead of the October Council, the possibility of a special November summit to seal the withdrawal deal is becoming more of a possibility.

It is clear that the reality of what the UK going alone without a deal has dawned on all but the most determined Brexiteers.

The multitude of technical notes issued by the UK Government has painted a stark picture of just how impossible trade as we have known it would become.

On top of these, the UK’s comptroller and auditor general warned at the start of the week that the UK was nowhere near ready to leave the EU on 29 March as the necessary controls simply couldn’t be put in place within that timeframe.

London conference

The farming and food industry from the UK and a number of the UK’s main trading partners in the sector also gathered in London on Thursday. The UK could go short and the price of mince might have to increase by up to 50%, warned the International Meat Trade Association speaker.

The difficulty of course is that the negotiation is still stuck on the withdrawal agreement, with the Irish border the crunch issue.

It is believed that attempts to resolve this will be based on the EU using more conciliatory language and pushing the technicalities into the fine print buried in an annex. The ambition is to retain the substance but avoid provocative language.

Interestingly, in her briefing to Parliament on Monday the Prime Minister mentioned that there would be no checks on product entering Britain from Northern Ireland but there was no mention of the other way round.

Parliament

As for the Parliamentary arithmetic, there is a hard core of conservative MPs that wont be satisfied. However, if the UK is edging towards a customs arrangement, not only would that solve the Irish backstop issue but it would also meet the key labour party demand of the UK remaining within the Customs Union.

Even the pro-Brexit Labour MP Frank Field is advocating membership of the European Economic Area (EEA), the same as Norway, as an interim arrangement.

He also said he couldn’t countenance a no-deal Brexit and if this mood develops, a majority could be built across the parties in Parliament for a deal that would keep the UK reasonably aligned with current structures.

Of course this is the ideal solution for Ireland and farmers in particular.

Solving the Irish border question is only a tiny part of the Irish problem and the wider economic consequences of a no-deal Brexit would be possibly worse for Ireland than the UK. For farmers, it would simply collapse the value of our produce, so as we enter the Brexit endgame, the hope is that the slow progression towards a deal continues and picks up the necessary pace.